Call for Papers

Call for short paper (pdf)

Universities and the academic profession operate within increasingly dense, complex, and controversial regulatory frameworks (Bromley & Meyer, 2021; Frank & Meyer, 2024). These structures govern the participation of organizations and individuals in the changing “game” of higher education. Recent academic work highlights the accelerated formalization and proliferation of evaluation infrastructures, governance standards, and accountability mechanisms. These enable and constrain organizational action (Kosmützky & Krücken, 2023; Marginson & Van der Wende, 2007; Musselin, 2021)—for example, they are changing the significance of existing institutions (e.g., in the context of university autonomy), redefining what counts as academic quality (e.g., through rankings), expanding the strategic repertoire available to universities and academic actors (e.g., by reshaping incentives through performance-based funding schemes), and altering power relations in higher education at different levels (e.g., between the state and universities, between and within universities).

In this sub-theme, we encourage submissions that contribute to a better understanding of how formalization and proliferation of evaluation infrastructures, governance standards, accountability mechanisms, and rules arise, gain authority, are interpreted or contested, and how they influence claims to legitimacy and strategic action (Ramirez & Christensen, 2013). Key areas include, but are not restricted to, the following:

A first possible field of research concerns the historical development of regulatory frameworks in higher education, and the gradual transcription of rules into management instruments (such as software and quantitative indicators) or structures that link together activities, units, and people in academia in new ways. Universities have evolved from profession-based systems of academic self-regulation to formalized, standardized, and transparent procedures for evaluating research, recruitment, and allocation of financial resources, and quality assurance in teaching (Maassen & Stensaker, 2019; Ramirez & Christensen, 2013; Woelert & Stensaker, 2025). This change raises questions about the shifting power relations between the academic profession and external regulators, the emergence of new regulatory infrastructures, the role of formal structures in universities (Musselin, 2006), and the implications for institutional autonomy.

A second area of research focuses on the establishment of rules and the associated regulatory authority (Bleiklie et al., 2015). Universities are increasingly operating in local, national, and supranational governance environments that are shaped by government agencies, funding organizations, accreditation bodies, journal publishers, rankings, and digital platforms (Lee & Ramirez, 2023; Lee et al., 2026). At the same time, universities themselves act as a kind of regulatory authority by defining normative expectations through strategies, codes of conduct, or mission statements, reproducing corresponding norms through this behavior, and thus influencing what is considered legitimate academic behavior (Philippczyck et al., 2025). Why, how, and by whom are these rules created? How do they circulate across countries, and with what impact?

Third, the distinction between following rules, playing with rules, and playing against rules is an interesting field of research with respect to the sub-theme. Universities and scientists often move between substantial and symbolic compliance, dealing selectively or strategically with evaluation criteria and performance indicators (Ma & Welch, 2025). Such practices reveal the limitations of governance systems and pose risks to their legitimacy and stability. However, universities and academics are also part of creating and demanding rules (Engwall et al., 2022), suggesting dynamic relationships between actors, organizations, and rules that can be further explored.

Fourth, contributions on rule violations, challenges to regulations, and institutional work are also highly welcome given that these topics are well analyzed in organization studies (Busby & Iszatt-White, 2016; Xia et al., 2023), but research on universities has received considerably less attention to date. However, movements such as Open Science, DORA, and alternative publication infrastructures are examples of conscious attempts to challenge existing rules and redistribute epistemic authority in academia. Such initiatives show how particular actors in the field of higher education reinterpret existing rules or even create new ones—often in response to perceived shortcomings in established evaluation and governance systems. The extent to which these rules institutionalize and how they become institutions are important topics. 

Fifth, current political and technological upheavals are complicating the regulatory environment in higher education. Heightened geopolitical tensions, polarized political discourse, national security concerns, and digital transformation are increasing pressures on heteronomous rulemaking and shifting the boundaries of academic freedom (Fleming, 2021; Moscardini et al., 2022). Universities are confronted with conflicting demands, such as academic autonomy and political control, or innovation logic and austerity measures. These developments require new theoretical perspectives on how regulatory frameworks evolve under turbulent conditions and how legitimacy is renegotiated within academic spheres.

Overall, the sub-theme will explore how rules influence the organizational principles, legitimation strategies, and field dynamics of universities. We welcome conceptual, empirical, historical, and comparative contributions that advance our understanding of, for example:

• The development and institutionalization of regulatory frameworks in higher education

• The impact on power relationships within universities

• The multi-level governance of rulemaking

• Strategic compliance, game behavior, and resistance

• Rule violations as a form of legitimation work

• The political and technological redesign of academic rules

• The impact of rule changes on academic identities, governance, and organizational change
   

• Bleiklie, I., Enders, J., & Lepori, B. (2015). Organizations as penetrated hierarchies: Environmental pressures and control in professional organizations. Organization Studies, 36(7), 873–896.
• Bromley, P., & Meyer, J. W. (2021). Hyper-management: Neoliberal expansions of purpose and leadership. Organization Theory, 2(3), Article 26317877211020327.
• Busby, J. S., & Iszatt-White, M. (2016). Rationalizing violation: Ordered accounts of intentionality in the breaking of safety rules. Organization Studies, 37(1), 35–53.
• Engwall, L., Edlund, P., & Wedlin, L. (2022). Who is to blame? Evaluations in academia spreading through relationships among multiple actor types. Social Science Information, 61(4), 439–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/05390184221146476
• Fleming, P. (2021). Dark academia: How universities die. Pluto Books.
• Frank, D. J., & Meyer, J. W. (2024). On university competition. Studies in Higher Education, 49(10), 1779–1787.
• Kosmützky, A., & Krücken, G. (2023). Governing research: New forms of competition and cooperation in academia. In K. Sahlin & U. Eriksson-Zetterquist (Eds.), University collegiality and the erosion of faculty authority (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 86, pp. 31–57). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20230000086002
• Lee, S. S., Skinner, N. A., & Ramirez, F. O. (2026). Dreams, dollars, and donors: Organizational actorhood and the rising development orientation of global higher education. Social Forces. Advance online publication.
• Lee, S. S., & Ramirez, F. O. (2023). Globalization of universities as organizational actors? In K. Sahlin & U. Eriksson-Zetterquist (Eds.), University collegiality and the erosion of faculty authority (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 86, pp. 87–104). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20230000086004
• Ma, J., & Welch, E. W. (2025). Linking administrative burden to academic scientists’ research performance: The joint moderating effects of perceived rule reasonableness and professional help. Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-025-01578-x
• Maassen, P., & Stensaker, B. (2019). From organised anarchy to de-coupled bureaucracy: The transformation of university organisation. Higher Education Quarterly, 73(4), 456–468.
• Marginson, S., & van der Wende, M. (2007). To rank or to be ranked: The impact of global rankings in higher education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 11(3–4), 306–329.
• Moscardini, A. O., Strachan, R., & Vlasova, T. (2022). The role of universities in modern society. Studies in Higher Education, 47(4), 812–830.
• Musselin, C. (2006). Are universities specific organizations? In G. Krücken, A. Kosmützky, & M. Torka (Eds.), Towards a multidiversity? Universities between global trends and national traditions (pp. 63–84). transcript Verlag.
• Musselin, C. (2021). University governance in meso and macro perspectives. Annual Review of Sociology, 47(1), 305–325.
• Philippczyck, N., Hoffmann, H., & Oertel, S. (2025). The role of institutional factors in shaping university mission statements: A topic-modeling approach. Public Administration Review. Advance online publication.
• Ramirez, F. O., & Christensen, T. (2013). The formalization of the university: Rules, roots, and routes. Higher Education, 65(6), 695–708.
• Woelert, P., & Stensaker, B. (2025). Strategic bureaucracy: The convergence of bureaucratic and strategic management logics in the organizational restructuring of universities. Minerva, 63(1), 1–21.
• Xia, J., Jiang, Y., Wang, H., & Li, Y. (2023). Rule violation and time-to-enforcement in weak institutional environments: A good faith perspective. Journal of Management, 49(8), 2549–2594.